Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sat, 24 Aug 1996 13:08:30 -0600 (MDT)
From:      Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>
To:        Doug Wellington <doug@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov>
Cc:        chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: JDK 1.02
Message-ID:  <199608241908.NAA12878@rocky.mt.sri.com>
In-Reply-To: <9608241836.AA04073@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov>
References:  <9608241836.AA04073@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
[ Moved to -chat ]

> >Most of these languages weren't written up in the press on a daily
> >basis, and touted as the 'best of breed' in programming languages.
> >Something will come along that's better in the future, but for now Java
> >is *the* language.
> 
> Just like Coke is *the* soft drink, MacDonalds is *the* burger, Baywatch
> is *the* tv show, Femstat 3 is *the* cure?  (Should I go on?)  Can we
> only like things when the media tells us to? (And ALL things the media
> tells us to?)  Why do we attach ourselves to such ridiculousness?

Because standards are 'a good thing'.  And, w/out standards we wouldn't
have jobs since our education would be meaningless.

> (I thought we, the UNIX world, were about elegant solutions that work
> hand in hand with other tools we have, and not about flavors of the
> day!)  [EEEEK, I hope I don't sound toooooo zealous there...]

Is it possible that Java is an elegant solution, or is not possible if
it like by the masses.

> >Java is C++ w/out pointers, w/out multiple inheritance, and the ability
> >to run on multiple platforms w/out recompile.  It's the 'ultimate' in
> >portability, although M$ and others are trying to muddy the waters by
> >making 'platform specific' extensions for it.
> 
> Hmmm...  When *I* want portability, I look to Python and TCL...

*YUK*  I like neither.  I think in C, and Java is *easy* for me to
program in because I can leverage most of my C knowledge.  I dislike TCL
very much (haven't looked at Python), and do like Perl.  This statement
alone implies that people will do different things, but for now Java has
the mindshare, and it's not all-together undeserved.  What I *disklike*
is Sun making it proprietary after touting how open they were going to
be about it.

> There are always trade-offs, and I don't believe that there is any way
> Java will be consistant across platforms (like Unix itself - "of
> course it's standard, but we have modified it to make our version just
> a little better...").  Hmmm, I wonder if we can extend autoconf for
> interpretting Java on the fly?

Sure it will be, as long as you don't throw an interface on it.  And, if
you do there is *NO* language/API that is consistant across platforms,
although Java is the closest I've seen.  (When using Netscape, a Java
applet on a Windows box looks like one on a Sun, which is like the applet on a
FreeBSD box, etc...)  You can't do that in *any* existing language/API
that I'm aware of.

> >> Do we really want to be dependent upon some server somewhere for what are
> >> really just throw-away viewers?
> >Whose 'we' Kemosabe'? :)
> 
> ME, for one...  "We" in general...  The Public(tm) is too ignorant to
> know any better, so since I'm the duly elected "daemon's advocate", I
> represent all those who aren't here...  ;-)

You and Terry should form the 'I know better than the public' group.
The 'Public(tm)' is smarter than you give them credit for.  My wife is
one of the 'Public(tm)' who you claim is too ignorant to know better and
the fact of the matter is the 'We' that you claim to represent haven't
give the public anything to get their job done, so they've went with the
'tainted/tasteless' solution that M$'s delivers.  Something is better
than nothing.

> We're really getting to the big point that I see, and that is the fact
> that there are two very distinct areas
1) extension of the global www
2) locally controlled ("secure"?) nets.

>  As for the www, I personally
> do not want to be transferring applets from parts unknown, even if I have
> a supposedly robust vm running on my local machine.

Then disable Java in your browser.  That's your business.

> And about the local stuff, I wonder if we wouldn't be better served
> with server side cgi scripting...?

CGI doesn't cut the mustard.  You can't put a nice front-end on a
back-end CGI script, and don't even begin to tell me that the current
crop of 'fill in the blank fields' is nice.  CGI is too limiting.

> One focal point, one script, central control, etc, and
> if those PC's on everyone's desk are so "low powered", shouldn't we be
> doing the hard work on the server?

That's one of the things that Java allows you to do is a more 'portable'
fashion.

> Or if we have sufficient power on
> the local PC, shouldn't they be running a dedicated (efficient?) viewer
> program instead of running an interpreter?

They have enough to run a viewer, but they don't have the 'oomph' and/or
resources to run a full database.  By using Java, you have an extensible
'viewer' that can run custom applets to display/enter/modify the data.

With CGI you're pretty much stuck, and with the current 'standard' of
using M$ you are limited in your choices of platforms to use on both the
remote and client end.

> And while I'm on this track,
> if we ARE on a local secure net, why not run a more full-fledged, more
> powerful interpreter like perl, python or tcl that already exists, instead
> of waiting for some limited Java interpreter?

Because they're not any more 'powerful' than Java, and there is still
the issue of security.  If you're on a secure net, there is still the
issue of internal security.  Java helps this.

> >For those zillions of programmers who have been doing Win32 programming
> >(aka, the API of the day), Java is a way out.
> 
> Ah, so Java is the answer to the Win32 blues...!  ;-)  Visual C++ 4.2
> doesn't support win32s anymore, so we know there is a way out.

Win32 != Win32s.  Win32 is the 32-bit API for windows.

> Microsoft
> has already shown us the way...   ;-)  (Seriously though, I think we'd all
> be better off honing our knowledge of the MFC instead of trying to switch
> languages...)

MFC/Win32 == API/day.  It changes about every 3 months, in often
non-backward compatible (*sarcasm* but it's better now) ways.  There are
horror stories of programs that compiled w/out warnings from one
revision to the next which refuse to run because the changes are small
enough to be un-noticed by the development tools, but large enough to
give the programmers grief.

> >Java is much bigger than the WWW, especially if Sun has it's way.
> 
> And ActiveX will be bigger than both Sun and the WWW if Microsoft
> has its way... [shrug]

ActiveX has no security, and ActiveX is dependant on some patents that
IBM owns.  Microsoft's license to these patents expires at the end of
the month, so we'll see what happens with ActiveX in the near future.

In any case, it's obvious to me that you know very little about Java (as
I admit I know little about Python).  You need to do a bit more research
on it before throwing it out as stupid.


Nate



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199608241908.NAA12878>